Chicago Justice season 2: 3 scenes we wanted

2. Nagel’s redemption

One of the subplots in Chicago Justice, but one that didn’t get a ton of play, was the troubled past of State’s Investigator Laura Nagel (Joelle Carter). Aside from the episode “Double Helix” the story didn’t come to the forefront, but it was clear Nagel had a difficult history—including a shooting, an addiction, a custody battle and how all of that had negatively affected her career.

Relatively speaking, Nagel was the least developed of the show’s main characters. Everyone knew Antonio Dawson (Jon Seda) from years on Chicago PD and his guest appearances on Chicago Fire before that. Both Valdez and Peter Stone (Philip Winchester) had episodes devoted to their pasts, and Mark Jefferies (Carl Weathers) dropped more than enough ideas of his history through all of his various comments to his subordinates.

Nagel had an episode with a character from her past in “Fool Me Twice” but it didn’t really give much more of an idea of what made her tick. She remained largely an enigma. Chicago Justice season 2 would have had to open her up a bit more, and honestly, after what we learned during the first season we were rooting for her.

There should have been one scene where she was able to take a major step forward. Whether it would have been getting back custody of her child, or getting to be lead investigator on a case if Antonio wasn’t available (perhaps dragged into what was going on with Chicago PD), or even just some scene where Antonio pulled her aside and encouraged her, seeing Nagel get the chance to be the person she was trying so hard to be would have been priceless.